This Time
by Tolakasa
Summary: AU, immediately after the end of season 9. Dean's a demon, and Sam can only think of one thing to fix it. Character death.
1. Sam: 2014

**Sam: 2014**

"Sam?" The voice echoed through the bunker, full of unwanted and unwelcome concern.

Sam stared dully at the whiskey bottle on the table in front of him, wondering if his liver was inured to alcohol, the way Dean's always seemed to be. If he drank the whole thing, would it kill him? Put him in the hospital? Do anything at all?

"Sam." Cas moved the bottle away. "What is it?"

"Dean's dead."

Hell, he should have thought of a better way to phrase that. Cas' face went blank with shock, and he crumpled into a chair. "Dead?" he repeated. "Metatron— He said, but I didn't believe— I can still sense—"

"It gets worse." Only a Winchester could ever say that. "I brought him back here. I—I was going to summon Crowley, make him bring Dean back, he deserved that much, but— The Mark—"

Understanding made Cas pale. "It revived him as it did Cain," he whispered. "That— He won't be—"

"His eyes were black. Crowley said— He called him a Knight of Hell."

"Then we have to—"

"What? Kill him?" Even to his ears, the laughter sounded bitter. "It took Dean _and_ the First Blade to kill Abaddon. With the Mark— I don't think anything can take him. I don't think I could even _reach_ him." He poured another glass, drank half of it in a single gulp. He should probably abandon the glass and just drink from the bottle, but this at least slowed him down. The same trick Dean used.

"He reached you when Lucifer had taken over."

"You said it. _He_ reached _me_. The times the Mark has taken over, I've _barely_ talked him down. Going the other way— It's not what I do, it's not how we work! That was always what _Dean_ did. And now— It's _got_ him, Cas. There's no way to talk him down now. Not that Crowley would let me."

"I can handle Crowley."

Sam looked up at Cas. "You can _handle_ Crowley? You can barely—" Wait. There was something different... "Did you get your grace back?"

Cas gave him a level stare. "Not precisely. There were angels who wished to remain on Earth. Several offered to give me their grace if they were allowed to remain. I—am not what I was. But I am closer than I have been in some time."

"Good. Then you can do it."

"Sam, even a full angel cannot cure the Mark."

"Not that." Sam tossed back the rest of the whiskey to keep himself from stopping to think about what he was about to say. "Time travel. If you did it when we stopped Anna, as wrecked as you were then, you can do it now."

"You know that nothing can be changed."

"Don't give me that destiny crap. This is all my fault, Cas. Everything. Mom died because the demon claimed me. Dad died to save Dean so Dean could save me. Dean went to Hell to bring me back and kick-started the apocalypse, and all the rest of this—"

"Sam, it does not matter how far back you travel. It cannot be changed—"

"I'm the only one who could be Lucifer's vessel, right? All the other kids Azazel tainted— That was just to open the gate and free Lilith. I— Making me one of them was a bonus, right?"

"Yes," Cas said slowly, clearly not following.

"Then there is _one_ thing that will prevent it. _All_ of it. Without me, it can't happen. Ever. Go back and make _sure_ it never happens. Make me never be born. Make me die before Azazel shows up. Just—stop it then."

"Sam, Heaven was as invested in what happened as Hell. It can't be—"

"It's worth a shot!" he shouted. "Hundreds of _thousands_ of people are dead because of me, Cas, and Dean never even had a chance to _live!_ If erasing me from history fixes it, then _do it!_"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because everything Dean has ever done has been to keep you alive, and if he found out I went back in time to _kill_ you, he'd—"

"_Dean is dead!_" Sam shouted. "He's dead and he's become worse than a demon! If it takes me dying to save him, _let it happen!_"

"Sam," Cas said, gently, and Sam fought the sudden urge to grab the bottle and slam it against the angel's head. "Dean would not want you to do this."

"Yeah, well, I didn't want Dean bringing me back by inviting angels in, either, and we saw how well that worked," Sam spat.

"He did what he thought was necessary."

Yeah, he always did. That was the _problem_. Dean never stopped to think that _he_ was necessary. "It's just— Cas, he's the one who deserved to be saved. Not me. Not _ever_ me." Shit. The alcohol was making him weepy. Cas was never going to agree with him like this. "All those chances he gave me— He was the one who deserved them. Nobody ever took care of _him_."

"Sam—" Cas took the bottle away and screwed the lid back on. "This is helping nothing. Go to bed."

"Why? I won't sleep." He wasn't sure he'd ever sleep again. And if he did, by some miracle, manage it, the nightmares would just wake him, that horrible image of Dean's eyes gone demon-black, that uncaring smirk, that promise to kill everybody they'd ever met if Sam came after him—

"Yes. You will." Cas came around the table and pulled Sam out of his chair. "Right now."

"You're not going to do it, are you?" Sam asked. To his surprise, he could still walk without staggering. Maybe Cas was helping on that, sparing a little angelic power to keep him upright.

Cas didn't answer, just got him to his room and watched in that annoying angel way as Sam toppled into his bed. "Bastard," Sam accused, half at Cas, half into his pillow. "If you really cared about him, you'd do it."

"You are drunk."

"Not drunk enough. And as soon as you're gone, I'm—"

"No, you're not." He pressed two fingers against Sam's forehead. "Rest now."

_Fucking angels_, Sam thought, and was asleep.


	2. Castiel: 1983

**Castiel: 1983**

The house was dark, quiet. It was late. In a room down the hall, John and Mary were asleep—John having a nightmare of war, Mary having one of a werewolf. Castiel eased those into normal dreams, then stepped into the nursery. The infant in his crib was awake but silent, sucking on his fist. He did not cry when the angel appeared over him, just stared solemnly up. No child feared angels.

There was no guardian. Given Dean's age, there should have been two in this house, and there weren't _any_. Who had removed them? Had Hell killed them, or had Heaven simply reassigned them so that the path would be made clear for Azazel?

He should not be here. He had made Sam no promises. But watching Sam torture himself like that...

There was no way to redeem a Knight of Hell, only destroy them. The Dean they knew was gone—and if Crowley thought that he would have any more control over Dean Winchester, Knight of Hell, than he ever had over Dean Winchester, mere mortal, he was in for a rude awakening. A Knight of Hell did not take orders from lesser demons, not even the self-styled King of Hell. Knights answered only to Lucifer. It was only a matter of time before Dean became the _ruler_ of Hell.

Abaddon was from a different age, an age that had largely forgotten Lucifer, finding it more convenient to pretend he was a myth. Dean, however...

Dean might be content to make himself Knight _and_ King. But Castiel had never known Dean to be content with the minimum in _anything_. And if Dean took it into his head to re-open the Cage, there was precious little left to stop him. Not with Heaven decimated by civil war. There had been no provision to reset the seals—why would there be? When the seals were broken, there was supposed to be Armageddon and then Paradise. Lucifer remained in the Cage only because there had been no one outside it who wanted him loose and no one with the power to shatter it. Look at how easily Castiel had retrieved Sam, and he was a mere angel.

But a new Knight of Hell, one afire with native loyalty to Lucifer, with the power of the Mark of Cain... The Cage would be _nothing_. It would take Dean longer to _find_ it than to open it. And the Mark could even twist Dean's natural protective tendencies to a point where he thought turning Sam over to Lucifer _was_ protecting him. Certainly, no one would dare touch Lucifer's vessel if he was in it.

No, he could tell Sam none of this, not with Sam already torn up by grief and shock. Perhaps that was why he'd offered only a token argument before taking away Sam's liquor and tucking him into bed and sending him to sleep.

Perhaps that was why he was here now.

"Who're you?"

Frowning, Castiel turned around, saw no one—and then looked down. There was a child standing there, looking up at him with—

_Dean._ He'd recognize those eyes anywhere, at any age. "I—" Castiel stopped, unsure. There was still faith in that little boy, pure and unquestioned—the faith that died tomorrow, in a fire, along with his mother. "I am an angel," he said finally.

Dean's eyes went wide. "Mommy says angels watch over us," he said reverently. "Are you one of them?"

Angels did not weep. Angels who had been human, angels who had been through as much as _he_ had, angels who knew what awaited that innocent soul, however, definitely felt a tightness in the throat that might be unshed tears. "Yes. I am—" No. If this did not work, giving Dean his name could twist the future. "Why are you not in bed?"

"Daddy forgot Sammy's bunny," Dean said matter-of-factly. "He can't sleep without his bunny." Dean thrust out a ragged blob of pale fuzz that—if the proper imagination were applied—might have been rabbit-shaped in some former life. Undoubtedly, it had been Dean's first, and this was some early bonding—

Even before the demon, Dean had been trying to take care of his brother. It hadn't all been orders and John Winchester's single-mindedness.

There was that annoying tightness again.

"Come here, then." Dean didn't hesitate, trusting in the way only a protected, beloved child could, and Castiel lifted the little boy so that he could tuck the questionable rabbit in beside Sam, then set him back on the floor. "Go back to bed," he said softly, "or your parents will be upset." He gave a slight nudge to Dean's mind, enough that he would go straight back to his room and fall asleep immediately once safely back in bed. Dean nodded, suddenly sleepy, and wandered off.

The baby was now gnawing on one of the rabbit's limp, much-abused ears—but he was still staring up at Castiel, as if somehow he knew why the angel was there. Perhaps he did. Perhaps there was something of that tormented man in him even now. Even angels did not understand, fully, the effects of traveling through time, the linkages formed between past and present when the intervening years were skipped.

There should be a guardian here to stop him. To stop Azazel tomorrow. To prevent the future that scarred these two children so very badly.

But there was not. And Dean was worse than dead, and Sam...

_I do not have to do this. There is no guarantee that it will even work, that I will not be struck dead by an archangel for even trying._

If this didn't work...

_If this does not work, they can hardly be any worse off, and if it does, maybe they can both have their peace._

Castiel reached into the crib. Sam abandoned the bunny for Castiel's finger. "I make no promises, Sam," Castiel said softly. "Rest now." A touch eased the baby into sleep.

He picked up the abused stuffed animal and slid it into a pocket of his coat. At least, if this did not work, he could show Sam evidence that he had tried.

Dean would destroy him for this.

Dean was already destroyed.

All the struggle had been for nothing.

"Forgive me," he whispered, not really knowing if he meant the words for Sam, Dean, or himself, and waited until the child was still.


	3. Dean: 2014

**Dean: 2014**

Sammie was a dead weight in his arms, and her tiara was digging into his throat. Dean sighed and tried to remove it, but his loving wife had apparently _glued_ it into Sammie's hair. It was probably the safer route, considering the way things tended to fall out of Sammie's fine hair, but this was going to be a two-handed job, and Cassie was conked out against his other arm, squeezed between him and the end of the bench.

"Take the shuttle, she says," he muttered, "it'll be easier, she says."

"She can hear you, she says," his wife said dryly from across the aisle. Johnny had fallen asleep next to her and was drooling on her sleeve. Jess reached into her bag for a Kleenex to wipe it off, then resettled Johnny so she could put her arm around him. "And this _is_ easier. You know you drive like a madman when you're stressed, and you're _worse_ in rental cars."

"We could've driven from home."

"In the _Impala?_"

"She's got a lot of life left in her."

Jess rolled her eyes. "I should've listened when Mary warned me that I was your second wife."

"You know you love her too."

"Not for long-distance driving. Besides, cramming a car seat and two boosters in the back? You would've been supervising this trip from the hospital because you'd have a heart attack."

She did know him. "Good point."

"Not to mention, you'd've driven us into a telephone pole after the first round of 'I'm not touching you,'" she said dryly. "You skipped that chapter, remember? _I'm_ the one who knows all about siblings on road trips."

"Right. What _would_ I do without you?"

"Crash and burn," she said, giving him that smile that had made him fall instantly in love with her back at Stanford. Right after she accidentally dropped _The Complete Works of Shakespeare_ on his head in the campus bookstore.

Okay, so part of the initial infatuation may have been concussion-related. But that was long healed, and he was still in love with her.

Cassie wrapped her arms around his free arm and squeezed like he was her teddy bear, and he smiled down at their middle child and the little stuffed dragon she clutched. Two wanna-be princesses and a wanna-be superhero. Not to mention their mother, who put up with him. Life was good. "At least they'll sleep tonight."

Jess gave him the Skeptical Eyebrow, which usually heralded Wife Stating Something That Should Be Obvious. "Not after we wake them up to get them off the bus. Then they'll be hyper for two hours."

And they had a plane to Kansas City at ten, which meant being at the airport at seven, which meant getting up at— He groaned. "Tell me again why we had kids."

"_Somebody_ thought they'd be fun." She grinned. "I don't know what you're complaining about. You only have three. I have _four_."

"I'm not _that_ bad."

"Tell me what your Halloween costume is again?"

"You can't have Kiss without Gene Simmons!" he protested, and she laughed.

The shuttle stopped at another park entrance, but only one person got on—a dark-haired man in a trenchcoat, of all things, despite the sticky heat of a Florida October. Dean eyed him warily, but the man simply took a seat near the front of the bus, not even looking their way. _Walking billboard for stranger danger, I swear..._

When the man didn't get off at the hotel with them, Dean—his arms full of Sammie and his focus on making sure the girls didn't leave any of their new treasures behind—put it out of his mind.

True to Jess' prediction, once wakened, the kids were all hyper and bouncy again. "There is no way I _ever_ had that much energy," Dean groaned after they finally got them into bed—asleep, hopefully, but with stern orders to stay there even if they weren't. He fell into his own bed next to Jess, wanting nothing more but a week's sleep.

"I bet your mother tells a different story," Jess teased, and he growled at her and gave her a quick kiss. "Of course, she only had to deal with you. Probably enough of a nightmare."

"Very funny."

"Dean—" She lowered her voice, so the kids couldn't hear, and was suddenly serious. "You never told me why they didn't— I mean, not that another kid would have replaced him, but—"

"She couldn't. They had to do a hysterectomy when Sammy was born." He slid his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "I know you think it's weird, but it's not just her, Jess. I— I need to remember him too."

"I know, but— Most grandmas want to spend _Christmas_ with their grandkids. And it seems like remembering his birthday would be—less painful."

"Sweetheart, I promised to love, cherish, and protect. I never, _ever_ promised you normal in-laws."

"True enough." She yawned and snuggled closer to him, and was quickly asleep.

Tired as he was, Dean couldn't.

The family trips _had_ been Christmas once, before that drunk driver took out Dad, but Mom had decided she'd rather see them earlier in the year. Dean had gone along with the request, much as it weirded Jess out, because he didn't want his mother alone. Not with Halloween and the anniversary of Sammy's death and the anniversary of Dad's death all in the same week. She said the kids made it easier. And it wasn't like they _didn't_ get to see her at Christmas, he just arranged for her to come down to Texas instead.

To be honest, Halloween had always been a mixed holiday for the Winchesters. Mom had never particularly liked it, just tolerated it because Dad insisted trick-or-treating was normal, but after Sammy died... She'd nearly had a breakdown the next year, pouring salt on the floor in Dean's room, carving symbols into the walls, muttering about demons and monsters. There had even been a hospitalization when Dean was six, though Dean hadn't known how sick his mother was until many years later.

Dean— Well, after Johnny was born, when it got near the six-month mark, he'd woken up more than one night with his mother's scream echoing in his dreams and a sudden need to go check on the baby. It hadn't been as bad with Cassie and Sammie, but it still happened. Luckily, Jess understood.

If he hadn't been such a little kid, if he'd thought to scream bloody murder at the sight of a stranger in Sammy's room, would it have made a difference? He'd told Mom eventually—a child's attempt to make his mother stop blaming herself, a child's tendency to assume guilt for everything—but like she'd said, it had only been a dream. If it had really happened, the bunny would have been in the crib with Sammy, and it wasn't. Besides, Mom had told him years later, after he found out about the psych hospitalization, that she'd looked into it. Guys with trenchcoats were kinda noticeable in suburban neighborhoods, even in the '80s.

Dean sat straight up.

The guy on the shuttle, the trenchcoat dude— He was the angel in Dean's dream from that night. The night Sammy died.

_My God._

He was out of bed in an instant, checking the kids, making sure they were still breathing. SIDS was what they diagnosed when they couldn't find another explanation, so there was no absolute proof that that was what had killed Sammy, no proof that his kids were too old for it—

"I'm not here for them."

He whirled around—and there was the guy again, only this time he was obliterating Dean's personal bubble. How the hell had he gotten in here? "Get away from my kids."

"I'm only a messenger, Dean."

"You're not—"

"I have a message from Sam."

Dean frowned. "Sam? I don't know—"

"He was never old enough to protest being called 'Sammy' here. But once— Things were different. And he wanted me to tell you, if this worked— This time, it was his turn to take care of you."

"I don't understand."

"I know. But that is also part of what he wanted." The guy looked at the sleeping children: Sammie and Cassie sharing the other bed, Sammie with her thumb in her mouth and clutching her doll in the other hand, Cassie with her head under her dragon, and Johnny sprawled on the cot, threatening to fall off any moment. Then his gaze shifted to Jess, and one corner of his mouth twitched. "I do not know that he would have predicted this, however."

"What, that I met a nice girl at college? Happens every day."

"Things were different, once." The man frowned, then reached into his coat pocket. "The timeline has changed around me. I do not know that I will remain after this. But you did not dream that night. Sam asked me to sacrifice his past in order to give you a future, and I— I did so." The man held out something in his hand, and Dean, still confused, accepted it.

He stared down at Sammy's bunny, worn gray fur, frayed blue ribbon, gnawed ears. The bunny that Dad had forgotten to put in the crib that night, exactly the way it had been the last time Dean saw it, not so much as another speck of dirt.

"How—" He looked up, stunned, but the man—the _angel_—was gone.

_**the end**_


End file.
